"Pretty nearly. Doesn't it?" Medora fell silent in turn,--let the light clatter of the tea things speak for her. "Are you going to the convocation?" he presently asked again. "Such variety!" she mocked. "Are you?" She hesitated. "Yes," she said. "That's better. Let's go together--as friends." "Who would imagine us going as enemies?" "Who, indeed?" Yet if they went together they went as reconciled competitors,--they went as the result of a truce. "I should like to see Bertram Cope in cap and gown," he said. "He has worn them before, he tells me." "As a----?" "As a member of the choir, during his undergraduate days." "I see." "I never noticed him especially, then," she acknowledged. "We can notice him now." Medora made a slight grimace. "Yes, we can notice." He the actor; they the audience. "A farewell performance." "A final view." Convocation day came clear, fair, mild. The professors walked in colorful solemnity beneath the elms and up the middle aisle of the chapel, lending both to outdoors and indoors the enlivenment of hoods red, yellow, purple. The marshals led strings of candidates--long strings and short--to the platform where the president sat, and the deans presented in due order their bachelors, masters and doctors. The rapid handing out of the diplomas brought frequent applause--bits, spatters, volleys, as the case might be. There was recognition for a Chinaman, for a negro law-student, for a pair of Filipinos; there was a marked outburst for a husky young man who was assumed by the uninformed to have been a star in the university's athletic life; there was a respectful but emphatic acknowledgment for a determined-looking middle-aged woman with gray hair, who was led on with four men as a little string of five; there was a salvo for a thoughtful, dignified man of thirty-odd, who went up as a group in himself, attended by marshals before and behind; and there was a slight spatter of applause for Bertram Cope (one of a small procession of six), yet rather more for a smiling young man who followed him.... Cope looked somewhat spare, despite his voluminous gown. The trying lights added little color to his face, and brought his cheek-bones into undue prominence. But he took his sheepskin with a bow and a gesture that extinguished several of his companions; and he faced the audience, on descending from the stage, with a composed effect gained by experience in the choir. The lustre in the ceiling lit up his yellow hair and his blue eyes: "He is as charming as ever!" thought Medora Phillips. "He's had a hard pull of it," commented Randolph. "I hope his own people will feed him up this summer," said Medora. Her emphasis was wayward; "He wouldn't let we do it," she seemed to mean. "Nor me," she almost made Randolph say.